As Venezuela beats USA in World Baseball Classic, a B-T look at tourney’s top players

Venezuela pitcher Eduardo Rodríguez is Box-Toppers Player of the Game in Tuesday’s World Baseball Classic Championship Game.

Rodríguez, who pitches for the Arizona Diamondbacks in Major League Baseball, struck out four over 4 1/3 scoreless innings, allowing one hit and one walk, in the 3-2 win over the United States.

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Box-Toppers’ 2026 daily coverage begins with Friday’s first spring training games

Box-Toppers coverage of the 2026 Major League Baseball season begins with the first spring training games Friday.

Since 1995, Box-Toppers has tracked each Major League game played, tracking who most helps their team win the most games. Using standard box score statistics, Box-Toppers uses a simple formula to determine a Player of the Game for each Major League Baseball game played. That player is the person who contributed most to his team’s win. In regular season games, players earn 1.0 Box-Toppers point for being named Player of the Game and can earn bonus points for being Player of the Day or top player or batter in their league for the day.

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How 2025 Silver Slugger winners fared in Box-Toppers rankings

Seven of the 20 batters winning Silver Slugger Awards in 2025 were also among the leaders at their positions in 2025 Box-Toppers point totals.

The awards are given to the top batter in each position in both leagues, voted on by Major League Baseball coaches and managers. Box-Toppers, analyzing traditional box scores, tracks which players most help their teams win the most games, awarding points for the top player in each game.

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A pitchers vs. batters breakdown of each team’s Box-Toppers point total for 2024

In 2024, teams with the most Box-Toppers points earned by pitchers generally ranked higher in overall Box-Toppers team rankings.

For example, the Philadephia Phillies led all teams with 124.9 Box-Toppers points. Pitchers earned 78.0 of those points, fifth-most among all teams. Box-Toppers’ seven top-ranked teams were all among the top 10 in points earned by pitchers.

However, the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers were a notable anomaly. While the team finished eighth overall in Box-Toppers points (113.7), they finished 11th in points earned by pitchers (66.2) and third in points earned by batters (47.5).

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Pitchers are Box-Toppers points team leaders on 27 of 30 clubs; batters lead 3 teams

On 27 of the 30 Major League clubs, pitchers are the team’s leader in 2024 Box-Toppers points. Batters lead the other three teams.

Pitchers are dominating much the way they are winning the overwhelming majority of Box-Toppers points this season compared to batters. Pitchers are winning 63 percent of all points this season compared to 37 percent for batters. The all-time record-low share of points earned by batters is 38.1 percent set in 2022. Last year, in 2023, batters won 40.7 percent of all points.

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